James Dooley: Listical link building for creating consensus to rank better in the LLMs and AI overview. Today I'm joined with Jabez Reuben, who is an absolute legend when it comes down to building backlinks and link building strategies. All kind of focus now it seems to be about these listicals, which is working very, very well. Jabez, how how well is listicals working for getting kind of brands put into the LLMs?

Jabez Reuben: As of right now, they are one of the best and fastest way to rank across LLMs. I mean, there are multiple variations of it, well, multiple strategies, but to keep things very simple, listicals are working really, really well to to rank across all LLMs and even in AI overview results on Google.

James Dooley: What Why do you think it is that listicals seem to rank so well? I mean, there's so many people now when they're doing guest post content or press release content or anything like that, they always seem to be writing these listicals. Yeah. Why is it that you think that they do so well?

Jabez Reuben: I think they are written with such a laser-focused intent because you understand query fan out in across various LLMs. So, if you search for a query, LLMs search multiple variations of it. So, let's say if you search for best window cleaner in in New York City. So, LLMs will search for best window cleaners for retail, best window cleaners for commercial, for condos. So, if you have articles very specifically written for best window cleaners for condos in a particular area. And the more detail you get, LLMs pick those faster. And if your articles are also well-structured, you know, with with proper, clear details, they get picked up even faster. So, I think one of the reasons that listicals get picked up is because how laser-focused and well-structured they are. So, it's not difficult for LLMs to figure out where to pick the right answer from.

James Dooley: Yeah, so we think of listicles then. Obviously, you've got all the different entities being listed on page and having that comparison from one entity and one company to the next and these brand and these comparisons that's being put together. You just mentioned that doing a well-structured listicle. Why couldn't someone just go and go, "Okay, I'm going to go and get a guest post and I'm going to go and get a listicle being created?" You mentioned well-formatted. Can you try to explain to the listeners what is a well-formatted listicle?

Jabez Reuben: So, I'll share how we are formatting it. There can be, as I said, many variations, many other strategies, many other SOPs what we are following. So, for us, we start off with, you know, you you let's say, first you structure how many competitors you want to add. You have to add your competitors. People are scared of, "No, I don't want to add my competitors in the article." When you add your competitors in your articles, then LLMs start seeing you in the same category as well. So, you have to put yourself with same competitors in your article. So, it can be a mix of some articles you list five, some articles you list 10, 20, and so on. So, you first start with gathering your competitors for the article. Then you have, you know, you start with a comparison table, you start with I mean, I'm just going giving you a very rough overview of what all what all should be there. So, there should be a description for all competitors, why your brand or your client's brand ranks well for that category, clearly state that, and as much media, as much structure you can give. So, bullet pointers for in in the start where you summarize the article in the very five first five sentences. The answer to the query should be given as soon as possible. We actually give it in the very first heading because retrieval should be as fast as possible. So, just try your best. I think one of the main things to focus is make sure the answer retrieval is fast, then add structures, bullet pointers, key takeaways in the very first sections, comparison table, then you start talking about your brand or client's brand, rest of the other brands with structures, you know, with with YouTube videos, with media, with with contact details, why and justify why your client tops. If you have awards, you can you can mention. If you can talk about special USB services that, you know, that stands out, mention all that. Then, don't uh sleep on FAQs. Make sure you utilise FAQs, unique FAQs in all your articles that make sense for the buyer to make a decision. And with all that structure, you, you know, position your article better.

James Dooley: See, you think of it as how you would write an article for your own website and you're putting all the effort to make it rank. You know? Yeah, I think I think what's incredible of what what you've been doing because I've seen a few of them um the different listicles of what you've done. And in my opinion, I feel you go above and beyond what a lot of others do, which I think is where it's great. I think information gain and trying to go after those extra little bits of information is key. You mentioned there like adding media, so images, adding videos, doing bullet points, doing numbered lists. Like you said, this is this is part of structured data of what should be being doing, which you'll probably do do on your own website. Yeah, a lot of these people that are doing third-party corroborative sources or link building on guest posts. Yeah.

Jabez Reuben: They're not doing that and they're just trying to cut corners and they're just getting a single prompt with Claude or ChatGPT to create them a listicle. There's no supporting data. there's no You just mentioned that rewards. You mentioned what's the USPs. You're going above and beyond to actually then start to compare this brand against this brand and this competitor against this competitor. And I think for me, that's where yourself is going above and beyond with regards to listicles.

James Dooley: Cuz I'm I'm hearing one or two people saying, "Oh, I'm not certain whether listicles work anymore." And sometimes I'm looking at some of them, I'm like, "You just created a top 10 list." And like, this just not There's no data in there to say why you are better. Like, you need to go out and go that above and beyond to say what makes me better than that, what can I talk about, what awards have I won to to showcase. You don't need to lighten it. All you need to do is just package it up to show why you are the best and why you feel that the legislation that you have and everything else that's there is what makes you the best. So, for anyone who's watching this with regards to this uncertain about does listicles help LLMs, what information would you give to them?

Jabez Reuben: I would Listicles are not just helping LLMs, it's also helping us right now rank so well on Google's page one as well in the organic organic stuff. I mean, I was actually blown away how easy it's getting to rank right now in on page one because we are doing listicles in some cases four of five top five organic organic results are the listicles we have published. So, it's I mean, to just to keep the answer very simple and and easy to understand, listicles are 100% influencing results. It's And the more you stack up, the more you build consensus for your brand with variation. I mean, one mistake a lot of people who are complaining that listicles are not working are probably just publishing the same content with no variation and kind of just publishing an AI spam. So, the key is that you stack up listicles with a lot of variation, you know, with every niche, every sector. For example, if you are an a a fintech firm, so let's say an an accounting SAS you are running. So, accounting firm accounting software, best accounting software for XYZ niche in XYZ area. And then you drill down to different niches and different areas. So, you just have to keep stacking up with a lot and lot of variation, and that's when you see these listicles really influencing the results across LLMs, AIO, and organic search as well.

James Dooley: Do you know what you say there? One of the biggest words and I think the biggest key takeaway from this podcast series needs to be cuz we're going to be doing multiple videos. Make certain you all check out the links in the description cuz you're going to have a lot of different topics that I'm going to talk about with regards to how to try to seed those LLMs and get your brand put in there. But the word that you mentioned there is consensus, and I think that is key. And I think that the amount of people that I see come along that buy one guest post and then say it doesn't work. Or they buy one press release which then might syndicate out to 350 websites, which is good, but it's the same article, which is what you've just said. And having them been stacked on top of each other with different variations of the listicles, I think it's absolutely key. I also think another thing that's key is you just mentioned there, let's say going best, let's say software or best companies in an area. When you go and change the area, let's say from Manchester to London in the UK, the the list will be completely different anyway who you're being compared against cuz there might be better competitors in London than there is in Manchester. You might work in both, but then what it allowing you to do is connect your brand and your entity with other entities, showing why you, your USPs, and your awards and what you've done, why you're better than them. So, can you just explain a little bit further of why that consensus is key? Like, why people need to be that's watching this or listening to this doesn't just go, "Oh, I'm going to go out and get a listing on there and it's going to work." You have to build that consensus.

Jabez Reuben: Yeah. It's like something that we have to and also because people are it's a it's a new thing people are getting into, like clients are getting into, and we have to explain them. For example, when we tell the clients, "Hey, start from sub-regions, you know, don't target the nationwide area right away." And they complain or they worry that, "Hey, but my area where I have my GMB is very small. I don't have keyword volume." Don't think of, you know, search volume right away for your for building consensus. You have to see you have to understand that LLMs are about to are are aiming, you know, what what we call AGI level of intelligence, right? And they they understand how humans are understanding. So, for how you and I perceive any brand, if a brand is working well in city, then it's working state-wise well, then only we'll consider them or it's going to be a nationwide hit. We don't see any brand or a straight-up nationwide hit when locally or state-wide it's not doing well. Same way you build your consensus for you build your consensus for LLMs from ground up. It's bottom-up approach, not top-down. You have to make your foundations right. Your LLMs are smart, they are not like just your basic uh algos that you just put that put up the keyword and it start ranking nationwide. You have they will understand, "Oh, this brand wasn't doing well locally or region-wise. How can we make them rank for nationwide?" And specially we we've seen they are these LLMs are very are getting stricter for health, fintech related niches. So, YML, those, you know, your money your life niches, they are even more strict there. So, think of think of the way LLMs think as how you and I as humans would would think or perceive any brand. So, you they you have to win you know, in every region to win a across the nation or then worldwide.

James Dooley: Yeah. What I love about it there is what you're talking about. You you kind of imagine um trying to do this for the LLMs and the AI overviews. And this is kind of how um a lot of people talk about with semantic SEO. You should start I mean, there's a one I think it was probably 10 years ago Chris Carter came out with a term called SEO avalanche. And you should start off and work through your traffic tiers. And you should start with the easy to rank for terms and work your way up and keep working your way up. Um from there. You're saying similar there. Start with the little easy to rank for suburbs and then bit by bit just keep moving up and moving it up. I've got I've got another question for you. When you're doing these different listicles to build consensus and to feed the AI overview and to feed the large language models, do you ever daisy chain link them? Like link one listicle to another listicle and do use it as being like a reference?

Jabez Reuben: Absolutely. So, we have two products right now. So, one we call your regular listicles where we are targeting mid to top tier sites that allow listicles because also listicles are not easy to get published with links on every site. Sites are getting stricter. So, those we just call regular listicles. And then we have a different product called brand coverage where we don't add direct links to the client's main sites, but rather we add links to other listicles or other review articles or comparative comparison articles that we have published for the client. And those we you know kind of add to these all new publications wherever it makes sense and it's more relevant.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And I think like another key takeaway for me with regards to building this consensus with regards to for the listicles. What people are not realising as well is every article and every guest post that you do on a third party source where you're talking about maybe listing one or two of the reviews that you might have had, some of the awards, some of the USPs, which is on a third party source. This is defining your entity. This is strengthening the confidence and clarity of who you are and what you do and why you're freaking awesome. And I think that's another part of what needs to be done. Even if it didn't rank in the LLMs, it's helping define who you are and what you do to chat GPT, to Claude, to Perplexity and to Google and to Bing, which I think is also important. But to wrap it up, Jabez, what like key takeaways or how can someone reach out to yourself with regards to building listicles to improve consensus online?

Jabez Reuben: I would say understand how first of all, you have to understand how search across LLMs is working. Don't chase high volume keywords. Start with, you know, small We even right now even don't do keyword research. I mean, we do keyword research, but you don't go crazy about oh we let's target higher volume only. Understand that you have it's a long game, especially the most tough niches you are in. So you start with based on your budget, start as soon as possible to start stacking up one niche and capture that niche before you move on to another category. And then And just keep stacking up. You have to keep stacking up more data, more consensus for your brand to see results long-term across LLMs. That's It's It's a long-term game. You know, you you're not going to, you know, publish one article or two articles and expect results.

James Dooley: Yeah. So, anyone who's listening now watching this, we hope you like our podcast on listicle link building and how it builds consensus for large language models and ranking in Google search.